“Aye, I know Abel.”
“There’s bright. My Sam could give him a good two inches up and a foot sideways. Dear God, you never seen such a man for looks and fortifying. Aye! Topped six feet naked and as broad as a barrel, with a smell of caulking tar and tobacco about him, being of ships. Up Whitland way, you understand.”
“Look, Miss Effie,” I said. “I will tell my mam you called and you come back later, is it?”
“And me been waiting till the three women were out? Damned days I have waited. A monkey-tail had Sam, you see. Fine, fine, he looked – worked the big two-riggers down in Saundersfoot till he heard the iron call and made for Blaina. Eh, God!” She narrowed her eyes. “Shoulders on him like two bull heifers, eyes as black as coal and the grip of his arm could break a woman’s back. You seen such a man, Jethro Mortymer?”
“Not lately,” I said, pitying her. “You’ve been waiting till my women were out?”
“Never mind that now,” she replied. “Will you hear about Sam?”
“Aye,” I answered, eyeing her, and her voice went low and sweet:
“Well, outside my tumbledown I found him,” said she. “Nigh six years back, could be more. Drunk as a coot, he was – his friends forced it on him, see – down in that stinky old Black Boar tavern. So I came out with my barrow and wheeled him in – never had a man under a roof before – and I stripped him and washed him clean. Like a baby he was in that washing, my Sam, but I covered him well, mind, keeping it decent.”
“Go on,” I said, kinder, for she was with purity.
“Well, then I got him in the sheets, hit out my last little hen, made him hot broth and fed him like a mother – bellowing all through it, of course – but I got it down him.” She raised her face, screwing at her hands. “But there was only the one bed, see, and he was cold to shivering. So in with me quick beside him for thawing, it being winter. Was that improper?”
“No, Effie,” I said.
“Slept without a snore, he did, by here,” and she held her breast. “On here, you understand, where a man’s head should be? You ever slept that way, boy?”
“Not yet.”
A silence fell between us then and she lowered her head, picking at her ragged dress. I longed for my mother to come then. Thank God she did not.
“But … but men get drunk by night and come sober by morning,” she whispered. “And in dawn light Sam woke and parted my hair and looked me in the face. Just one look, mind, then up with him screaming – one jump to the door and through it streaming bedsheets, hollering blue murder down the village. Can you explain such behaviour, Jethro Mortymer?”
I shook my head, and she smiled wistful, head on one side. “Scared of females, perhaps – him being of ships and with men all his years, for these sailor men don’t know much about women, you see.” She smiled, straightening. “But he did not go for good, remember. I still have my Sam for lovering, remember. And at night I do know the heat and strength of him and his childer leaping within me, down by here,” and she held herself, smiling.
“Gone for good, then?” I asked.
“Good God, no. Do you think us women give up so easy? I tracked him. He sailed from Saundersfoot to Newport and unloaded himself for the Monmouthshire iron and legged it down to Blaina. But he opened his mouth in Black Boar tavern before he went, and I followed him to Blaina on foot. Aye, to Blaina town I went – barefoot, and I nailed him. ‘Sam Miller,’ I said, ‘you have shared a bed with this Effie. Would you put me to shame and leave me stranded? Make me decent, Sam Miller, lest you be judged for it.’” She grinned up at me with a naked mouth. “More than one way of hitting out hens, but it takes a woman to think of it. You interested?”
“And he married you?”
“Galloped to the altar, thinking me in child. Aye, decent! Damned good Welsh, that one; proud to lie with him. Pity such men die.”
“He died?”
“Like a dog – going in the carts to Monmouth. He marched with the men of the Eastern Valley, to Newport. And they shot him down on the steps of the Westgate and tied him, and put him in the carts for Monmouth trials.”
My heart was thumping now. Leaning, I gripped her wrist. “My brother was in those carts,” I whispered.
“O, aye,” said she. “That is why I am here. You got a sister-in-law here by the name of Mari?”
“Yes, yes!” I had hold of her now, drawing her up. “What of her?”
“And do you know a man called Idris Foreman, Blaenafon?”
“My father’s foreman, my brother’s friend. For God’s sake, woman, what are you trying to tell me?”
“Just this,” she said. “Iestyn, your brother, is dead.”
I heard her but faintly, as through the veil of years.
“Aye, dead,” she said. “He died with my Sam. Your brother, my Sam and Idris Foreman, Blaenafon. And a man called Shanco Mathews charged me to tell you. Four years I waited, starving in Nanty, and then the news came through, and Shanco told me. ‘Go back home to your county, Effie girl,’ he said. ‘And if ever you happen on people called Mortymer, you tell Jethro, the son, that his brother is dead,’ and he gave me two shillings to help on the journey. ‘Tell Jethro the son, but keep it from his women, for all three will go mad. As mad
